Younger Than Yesterday
by Rowena Zahnrei
Summary: After losing Rose and destroying the Racnoss, the Last of the Time Lords takes a few minutes to reflect over what he's lost, and who he's become. An introspective piece on finding hope after tragedy, this story is dedicated in memory of my Grandma.


Disclaimer: I do not own _Doctor Who _or _My Back Pages_. My thoughts, however, are my own.

NOTE: I thought a lot on my way to and from New York this week. My thoughts were funeral thoughts, 'cause I went to New York to bury my Grandma. In the car, I sat with my family, listening to my favorite song and thinking. This story was inspired by that song: _My Back Pages_, written by Bob Dylan and performed by The Byrds. The title was taken from the Byrds CD by the same name.

**Younger Than Yesterday**

**By Rowena**

The cars whizzed by, glints of uncaring metal floating through the world on rubber wheels. They passed over the bridge and away, up under then down, probably never giving the water more than a cursory glance. The wintery sun was low in the sky, painting the clouds a rich orangy golden pink. Like a mirror, the rippling bay reflected the colors back, reminding me–at least for the moment–why I like this planet. It's a feeling, a smell, a sight. For all the worries of humanity, this world is still a wild place, always changing, always moving on. Independent. Oblivious to humanity's best laid plans.

I've been thinking a lot lately about change. How sudden it can be. How even when it's expected, you still manage not to expect it. Foolish really. If there's one constant in the universe, that constant is change. And isn't that ironic.

It's a matter of choice, in a way. Of choosing what to believe. We choose to believe in forever because it's the alternative that seems impossible. But before you know it, the impossible is the reality. Forever doesn't last.

I knew the storm was coming. Rose suspected. But I knew. Alone, we could hear the warning in our hearts–alone we would listen to our fears. But together we were a 'We'. We were Us. Us and We…impenetrable pronouns, so powerful, so definite. Together Forever, nothing could touch Us.

The thing is, forever is for those who Know. A glimmer of doubt and it disappears. Forever is for the wise old heads who have it all figured out. I was old like that once.

It wasn't so long ago. I counted myself a questioner, but inside I knew I had the answers. I blundered in where angels fear to tread, wherever half-wracked prejudice or hatred leaped forth. I was confident in my authority, certain I knew right from wrong.

But like I said, I was older then.

I'm younger than that now.

Picking my way down the stony beach, I crouched down where the lapping water met the shore. The coldness of the waves seeped into my burgundy trainers, weighed down the hem of my coat. But I only had eyes for me.

There I was, my reflection rippling over the water in faded colors, distorted and strange and eerily recognizable. And I wondered…if I were to meet myself as a child, what would that child see? Not that I was ever a child in the conventional human sense of the term. My people were loomed, not born. But, for all intents and purposes, the newly loomed were viewed as children. And there is no creature in this universe older than a child. Children Know. They Know because they don't know any better–they haven't had the experience. Their convictions stand unshaken.

What would my ancient child self think of this young, frightened, desperately uncertain old man I've become?

When I was on Gallifrey…when Gallifrey existed…I would look at the old fogeys on their tenth incarnation and shake my head. Those white-haired Time Lords were old, old men. Far older than I've ever been, or am ever likely to be. They'd mainly retired from all but political life, resigned to live out their remaining regenerations peacefully wasting to nothing. They lived as old men, thought as old men, and regenerated into even older men. And when I asked them questions, I could see it in their eyes–they were convinced they knew everything.

Pompous, arrogant, dusty senators. That Krillitane had been right.

But I am different. Something new, he'd said. Something new. And what can be younger than new?

So now here I am, on my tenth incarnation. But looking at the water, it is not an old man I see staring back at me. I feel feeble, inside, weak and drained and tired in ways I've never felt before. But my face is that of quite a young man. Brown hair, sharp features sprinkled with freckles. A mischievous face with mischievous hair, untamable, insistent on going its own way.

Is that what my child self would see?

Or would he see the truth? The terrified, lonely meddler, wary even of his own beliefs. Wary of trust. More willing to act out in anger than take the time to think. A lanky, slender man dressed in a blue, pinstriped suit. Blue… On the planet Necros, blue is the color of mourning.

You get one chance, I told them. The Krillitanes. The Sycorax. The Racnoss. One chance to please me. One chance to do as I say. One chance to conform to my will, for my will must be on the side of right.

But it's a lie that life is black and white. A compelling lie, though. Right verses wrong. Monochrome television. Providing a foundation as strong and solid as your convictions. If I'd doubted my convictions, I probably never would have left Gallifrey. Never gone exploring on Skaro. Never met the Daleks…

I was so old, then. So very old.

Action is the enemy of thought.

I read that once. Or maybe I saw it in a movie. Anthony Hopkins, _The Human Stain_. Yeah, that was it.

_The Human Stain._ That title refers to race. To the prisons we build for ourselves. The prisons we spend our lives fighting to escape.

I've been stained by humanity. Contaminated by their doubts, their fears of the unknown. But without doubt, there is no wonder. I have always treasured humanity for their capacity to wonder. To dream and imagine. So convinced that their world is malleable, that they can change things if they only have the heart to try.

Have my companions been keeping me young?

During the Time War, I was a soldier. I fought and I planned and I strategized and I killed. I killed Daleks. I killed them in overwhelming numbers. But they kept coming, kept adapting. And we Gallifreyans were so few. Only a few hundred thousand of us in the whole of the universe, urbanized, computerized and arrogant, soft, stagnant, and self-important. They looked to me to advise them…to lead them. I'd been their President. The Time Lords had put me on trial time and again, they'd sent me into exile, but they'd always known they needed me. They needed me to make the impossible decisions. To act where they could not. To take on the blame…and the shame…of our fallen civilization.

I did as they asked. It broke me, but I did it. I killed them all, erased them and their planet from existence, and it was all for nothing.

The Daleks survived. And so did I.

I'd never been a soldier. Never thought I had it in me to kill…and to kill on such a massive scale. But I do. God help me, I do.

I was the Doctor. The infamous, expendable rogue sent by the Time Lords to stop the Daleks in their tracks. They'd given me a mission to prevent or alter the Daleks' development so they'd be less of a threat to the universe. It was on that mission that I had a chance to stop them. To destroy them all forever, stop the Time War before it could begin.

But I didn't know of the Time War, then. Couldn't conceive of such wanton carnage, let alone imagine the dark emotions that war would stir in my soul. All I had to guide me were my own beliefs, my own confused feelings. I held the wires in my hands, I stared at the exposed copper. Sarah Jane was at my elbow, insisting it was the right thing to do, pleading with me to do it, to bring those wires together…to exterminate the Daleks once and for all.

But I didn't do it. I couldn't do it. Not then. I couldn't kill an entire species. I didn't have that right. The Daleks were not all bad, I thought. Their malignant presence in the universe would have to make at least some positive impact. Alliances would be made where there would have been wars. There is no better unifier than the threat of a common enemy.

That was my rationale. That was my excuse. I was frightened, overwhelmed, uncertain. But I was the Doctor, and the Doctor was not a killer. I was young then, but at least I could be sure of that.

Not anymore.

I'm still uncertain. I often feel overwhelmed. Only now, the monster I fear the most is within me.

I've realized something. If I had that opportunity again, an opportunity to wipe out the Daleks, deep down I have the cold, creepy feeling that I'd take it. No matter the consequences.

Because now, you see, there's precedent. I've committed genocide before. And not just to end the Time War. I did it recently, and I did it on my own.

I destroyed the Racnoss. I killed them all. And I drowned myself in their screams.

Donna told me that I frightened her. That startled me at the time. It hurt, and hurt deeply. But I understand now, she was right to be frightened. The pain and uncertainty I've known recently has made me cold. Cold in places I never knew existed. I'm a different man because of it. Rude and dark, impulsive and dangerous. And so very, very young.

My fourth persona was a noble man. Independent and self-assured. He couldn't kill the Daleks.

My ninth persona was honorable. He'd suffered so much, bearing the guilt of the Time War openly on his face. Yet he refused to sacrifice a dying Earth to save the rest of the universe.

I killed the Racnoss. I flushed them down the loo, like the spiders they resembled. You get one chance, I told them. If I don't like it, it will stop. There is no higher authority. It ends with me. The buck stops here.

What have I become?

Without trust, there can be no love. And only where there's love, can there be mercy. If there's no one I can trust, no one to trust in me…mercy fades to vengeance. A projection of my own loneliness and pain. I see myself as Donna saw me, shrouded in flame and destruction: a stranger, taking up a soldier's stance, preaching the words of righteousness…

Refusing to recognize that with every word I spoke, I was becoming my enemy. The tyrant who stands above the law. The murderer deluded by his own skewed, limited definitions of right and wrong, good and bad.

Slipping into the fallacy of godhood. Unable to trust myself.

Donna told me to find someone. She said…she said I needed someone to stop me.

I need someone to protect me. Someone I can depend on, who can save me from myself.

I need Rose. And Rose is gone.

Which brings us back to the beginning, with change–the unexpected and ever present, inescapable force. Change drove Light mad. I remember that well. Light had come to survey all life on Earth, but he hadn't counted on change. On evolution. His catalogue was outdated before he'd even finished. Only a fool puts his trust in permanence. Change is the rule, the unbending law.

Change will get you in the end.

I've changed a lot in my life. Changed bodies, changed personas, changed clothes, changed my preference from coffee to tea, jelly babies to bananas. I know what it's like to look in a mirror and literally see a stranger staring back. That's not me, I say. That can't be me. But it is. And there's no going back.

Rose changed too. When I last regenerated, I imprinted on her. I don't think it was conscious, but it happened just the same. Like a duckling on its mother, I took on aspects of her character, her accent. But all the while, she had been patterning herself on me.

When I was wounded, she became my rock. She taught me to trust again, to laugh out loud and really feel it, deep inside. I depended on her because she was dependable. She made me feel safe in my skin. And then I regenerated and she became my template. I rebuilt my broken soul around her bright, wondrous smile.

She was strong and she was sharp and she didn't back away from fear. She blossomed before my eyes from wide-eyed follower to authoritative leader. When we were trapped on that impossible planet, the one orbiting the black hole, I felt confident leaving her behind while I went down to explore the pit. She proved that day how well she could handle herself, and others. She spoke up, took command, organized those panicked space base inmates into an effective team. She was more than my best friend. Through her actions that day, she had proved herself my equal. She had displayed an intelligence and a maturity that awed me. And I had never been so proud.

I saw her in a new light after that. Before, I'd viewed her as impulsive, too often allowing her emotions to rule her head. That was the girl who'd hacked her way into Heart of the TARDIS to save my life at the risk of her own. That action had proved her bravery and her amazing loyalty, but it had been a rash and dangerous move. She loved me, but I couldn't put my full trust in her. Not when I had to carry on protecting her.

On that forsaken space base, however, my Rose finally realized herself. And I realized she was no longer mine to protect. She had learned to contain her emotions and analyze her situation. And I allowed myself to let go and put my trust in her as a partner. Not a traveling companion or an assistant. Rose was my partner. The first full partner I've ever had. Even more than Romana. A proper Time Lady in every way, Romana's aim had been to learn what she could from me, then move on, which is precisely what she did. Rose had wanted to stay. She knew how much she meant to me. She knew that, although I could never say it to her face, I loved her too.

I'd invested so much of myself in her. That's not to say I told her everything about me–or even much of anything really. Now I think of it, I don't believe I ever even told her the name of my home planet. I might have told her, one day. But before that could happen, everything changed.

The Daleks returned. The Cybermen followed in their wake. And Rose refused to leave me. That refusal, the determination in her eyes, her smile… That made it so much harder when she was ripped away. Torn from my life. The storm had passed and she was gone.

Forever.

But Forever doesn't last. Things can change. Things can always change. The humans taught me that and Time confirmed it. I've seen it reinforced over and over by the Second Law of Thermodynamics, by entropy and spontaneity, by everything I've stopped or caused to happen.

I don't believe I'll ever find another partner. Rose was unique in her openness, in her willingness to look beyond the blinkers of human conformity and embrace the wonders of the universe. She was eager to learn, to think, to grow, to change. Most humans resist change. Even the most open minded among them reach their limit eventually. They encounter something too strange, too alien, too challenging to what they think they know and they deny it. Humans. Each of them, a muddled mess of contradictions.

And I've had to live this long to find I'm just the same.

Nothing is certain anymore. I've lost my compass. Rose kept me on track, but Rose is gone. Rose is off living her life, having adventures of her own in a new world, parallel to this one. She has her family, new friends, a job where she can put the skills she learned with me to good use. Rose Tyler, I called her, Defender of the Earth.

She is truly fantastic.

The sky is darkening now. The once golden clouds have faded to purple. The cars on the bridge are just headlights, orderly fireflies buzzing their way across the sky.

Afternoon has changed to evening, and the wind is getting bitter. It's time I was getting back to the TARDIS. She worries, and I don't blame her. It's been a long time since I've felt this lost. A lifetime. But it's all right. I'll survive. I'll go on living, just as I always have. Alone for now, but eventually, when I'm ready, I'll find another friend. Another assistant to travel with, to help me investigate all that is odd and unusual. We'll run together, laugh together, argue together. And I'll protect my new friend as I strove to protect all the others.

But not yet. I'm still too young, too fragile. Maybe in a few more months, or years, or decades I'll feel ready to take on the responsibility of caring for another companion. It's a lot of work. A big emotional investment. You have to be on your game, always the designated driver. Rose is the only person I ever trusted to take the wheel.

Still, as the human saying goes, where there's life there's hope. This planet's just teeming with life. And life changes. The circle of life. A cycle of change.

Where there's life there's change. Where there's change, there's hope.

I can live with that.

**The End**


End file.
